Gang-fighting budget gets boost in Lodi

LODI - The Lodi Police Department soon will sponsor a gun buyback program and offer to pay for reforming gang members to cover up tattoos that express their affiliation, Chief Mark Helms said.

Keith Reid

LODI - The Lodi Police Department soon will sponsor a gun buyback program and offer to pay for reforming gang members to cover up tattoos that express their affiliation, Chief Mark Helms said.

Lodi police have applied for and received a second $305,000 California Gang Reduction and Intervention Program grant that will extend the department's efforts to deter violent crime through 2014, and increase its overall grant total to $555,000.

Mayor JoAnne Mounce revealed the grant had been renewed less than a year after police started spending a $250,000 CalGRIP grant that it received in March.

"I think the state has seen how well we're utilizing this grant money to curb gang activities, and that's why they accepted our second application," Mounce said. "I don't think gang problems will ever be fully eradicated in any city, but you can do a lot to keep it from accelerating. And we're doing that."

Helms said the money will pay for more equipment, a code enforcement officer, police overtime dedicated to gang suppression, a gang crime analyst and training.

The tattoo cover-up program will not involve laser removal.

"It won't be a removal. That's too expensive. But we can pay to have tattoos covered up by a tattoo artist so it becomes something else," Helms said.

Helms said that in the gun buyback program, the department would pay as much as $100 per weapon and destroy it. The city would dedicate $20,000 to the buyback program, potentially eliminating at least 200 guns from the community.

The new grant will build on the department's increased gang patrols and the hiring of two youth outreach workers - who operate on a similar level as Stockton's Peacekeepers program - who have been stationed at local schools.

The City Council is expected to approve a $50,000 commitment to help pay the outreach workers' salaries and an in-kind personnel and equipment match of $255,036 at its Dec. 19 meeting.

With the first CalGRIP grant, the city set out to curb violent crime. There was a 33 percent increase in shootings and stabbings in east Lodi from 2010 to 2011.

Youth counselors Ruben Guardiola and Ernest Bass were hired to start school programs. Guardiola previously started a handball program at Lodi High School to help Latino gang members be involved in a leisure-time activity. The success was shown in fewer lunchtime fights at the high school, officials said. The city picked up on the handball idea and hosted a tournament featuring professional handball players in September.

Now, Guardiola has expanded the handball program to Tokay High, and Bass has been working at middle schools with additional outreach efforts to children who are in gangs or considered at risk of joining a gang.